Love The Stranger (Glee)

The Arts

Hey y'all! Welcome back to Love The Stranger!! I know I've been taking this long as hell break, and I know how exhausting it must've been for you, but I swear something like that will never happen again!! With covid-19, the death of Naya and my kitty Thomas, everything just kind of stopped for me. BUT I am back, babyyy, and I'm here to stay.

So lemme clear things up. This will feel kind of rushed, but I promise you it's only because I wanted it to feel rushed, everything will be explained next chapter, I promise. Hold on tight! And let's hope for the best.

Word Count: 3490

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“We've all been hurt by words before. So before you speak, think about how your words might affect someone else.”

- Naya Rivera

What does being a Berry mean? Does it mean being yourself, or does it mean lying, and risking everything just to be someone you'd rather be? Stop asking for these things you can't have. Stop trying to be like the others. Because, when it comes down to the Berry, denying who you are is enough to be the the sour seed that ruins the fruit.
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You'd think Rachel would give up on her dreams of becoming popular, give up on her dreams entirely just to please the two people she looks up to the most, but you're wrong. Rachel doesn't give up, and surely, that's what being a Berry is all about.

The way her body sways, in and out, in and out. The way the music drops her to the ground just to pick her back up when she feels most alone. The way she feels so incredibly alive and so incredibly welcomed is the way she's wanted to feel since the day four became three in the Berry Household

She twirls with the throng of students, each with their own problems, their own lives and souls. Each with the power in them to rule the world, but also the power in them to corrupt their own selves to feel better about that exact world around them.

They dance to this song... Rachel has heard it plenty of times.

I am in misery, and there ain't no body who can comfort me

To that, she sings along: "Why won't you answer me? The silence is slowly killing me!" She's laughing, forgetting about the past, the future, and the present. Whatever happened before, has been replaced with happy faces and groovy shoes that move up and down the living room. A hole in her heart gets refilled with her new found confidence, and she dances, dances until it fills to the brim.

Sweat drips down her forehead, and her hands fly everywhere. She feels her feet give into the music, so she lets go. Body against bodies, and she's wondering where all the time went. She's wondering if it slipped through her fingers when she sang the words of take chances, when all of this began, and ended?

Having trust in your own friend is exhausting, Being a Berry is exhausting, and as each minute passes, it becomes less of a worry, and more of a way of life. Being a Berry is what Rachel is meant to be, and she loves it. Being betrayed, on the other hand, is something Rachel will come to hate even more as she dances by herself. Once again, filling herself up, just to be brought back down when the hurricane is set and done.

A minute goes by, maybe two minutes, and Rachel feels higher, more alive than before. What Blaine had told her sticks with her as she dances. She's being that umbrella, she's being that dove, that bird that flies above McKinley, the one on the window she drew, the one in her coat she erased. She's everything, but she's not Rachel.